What’s in it for me?

What’s in it for me?

While eating lunch with a co-worker, I asked if she had ever tasted a jicama. She replied, “no”. So I offered her a taste of one from my lunch. She looked at the slice of jicama, tasted it and then said, “It tastes ok, but what is in it for me?” I explained that as a vegetable, it will have some minerals, vitamins, and fiber.

Later as I thought about this conversation, I wondered if anyone ever asked that question before eating a piece of candy or a dessert. Usually, the response to a new sweet is, “where did you buy it” or “is it easy to bake” or “where did you find the recipe?”

Jicama: a crispy, sweet, edible root with a unique flavor that lends itself well to salads, salsas, and vegetable platters.

In nutrition, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, dairy products, beef, poultry, pork, or seafood are called nutrient rich. This means that for the investment in calories, they have a return on the investment with protein, carbohydrate, healthy fat, vitamins, minerals, and fiber.